Seasonal custom product pages

What is a seasonal custom product page for?

For the weeks when people want your app for a reason tied to the calendar. Apple lists seasonal and culturally relevant content among the uses of custom product pages, and its examples include a sports app highlighting a tournament season.1 The page varies its screenshots, app previews and promotional text for the season.1

For Lull, a made-up sleep sounds app, the calendar gives several pages a year:

What a page can and cannot change is in the complete guide to custom product pages.

How early should you make it?

Earlier than feels necessary, because a seasonal page has a deadline and review comes first. Every custom product page, and any deep link on it, must be reviewed before people can see it.4 Apple says App Review typically reviews at least 50% of submissions in less than 24 hours and 90% in less than 48 hours, and that an incomplete submission can be delayed or not pass.3 Those are Apple’s typical figures, not a promise for your page, and a rejection means fixing and submitting again.

1. Pick the date the page must be live, and work back.Leave room for one rejection and a resubmission, not just one review.
2. Create the page and name it after the season.The reference name is how App Analytics labels it, so “Seasonal · Exam season” beats “New page”.
3. Make the screenshots and promotional text for the season.Keep the claims to what the app does all year; the season is the reason, not a new feature.
4. Submit it, with or without an app version.Once your app is approved, a page can be submitted on its own, so it does not wait for a release.
5. Once it is approved, set up the traffic.Ads, links and keywords, below. People can open the URL only after approval.

Steps 2 and 4 are Apple’s.24 Apple also lets you request an expedited review in extenuating circumstances, which it says include releasing your app to coincide with an event you are directly associated with; it is not a plan for a page you started late.3 The reasons pages are turned back are in why custom product pages get rejected.

Where do you send people to it?

Anywhere you control the link for the season, plus search if you want it. A custom product page is shown only to people who follow its link or search a keyword you assign to it.2 So the page does nothing until you send people to it.

• Apple Ads. An ad variation can use the page as its creative and destination. How that works is in custom product pages for Apple Ads.
• Other ads. Use the page’s URL as the App Store destination; see custom product pages for Meta and TikTok ads.
• Links you send. A seasonal email or a link on your site; see custom product pages for email campaigns.
• Search keywords. You can assign keywords from your latest approved app version to the page, so people who search them see this page instead of your default page. Apple says the page is searchable only once it is approved and set to visible, and suggests a unique set of keywords for each page.2 How that works is in custom product pages in App Store search.

Keywords can only come from your latest approved app version, so if the season needs a word your app version does not carry, that word has to be in the version first.2

What do you do when the season ends?

Move the traffic first, then decide what happens to the page. Apple gives you three things to do with a page, and they treat its link differently:

Switching traffic means pointing the ads and links back at your year-round pages and disabling the season’s keywords: Apple says you can disable a page’s assigned keywords individually.2 If an Apple Ads ad variation uses the page, disabling the page puts that ad variation on hold, and deleting the page deletes it.5 Pause or move the ad first.

Next year, open the same page, click Create New Version, update the screenshots and submit. The edited page replaces the current one once approved, and its URL does not change, so last year’s links work again.2

How is this different from an in-app event?

An in-app event is a separate App Store feature, for a timely event that happens inside your app, such as a competition, a premiere or a livestream.6 It gets its own card on your product page and in search results, and can appear in editorial and personalised recommendations. Apple says an event can last up to 31 days and be promoted up to 14 days before it starts, and events are submitted for review on their own.6

A seasonal custom product page is a version of your product page for people who arrive by a link or a keyword. An in-app event is something new happening in the app, shown to people browsing the store, including people who already have it. If the season brings real content into your app, you can do both. The terms are side by side in the App Store product page glossary.